Anduin being distraught makes sense

Lore Story Forum
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He lost all self control. He was forced to act against his will. He has survivor’s guilt (despite not killing anyone) ontop of it. And even if he didn’t kill anyone, it makes sense for him to have that guilt because he did attack people. He may lament that “he enjoyed it as it happened” or it may be just another figment of his guilt manifested because. Jesus. What happened to him is horrible.

It makes sense that Anduin is messed up over it. Hating him for being messed up for it is dumb.

What isn’t dumb is pointing out that Anduin is shielded from any wrong doing by the development staff. He is their perfect angel. Their baby boy. He can NEVER be morally wrong. At all. Ever. So, you’re correct to draw the distinction that – while it’s correct that Anduin would be emotionally scarred by the event – we the players know he didn’t do anything that was scarring. So, we emotionally don’t care that he feels that way.

Compare and contrast Anduin with Garrosh and how their crimes are portrayed and carried out. Or Sylvanas. Or Overlord Kromgarr. Or Grom. Or Guldan.

The distinction between the two might be hard for the layman to consider if they haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about the story both as it is written and how it is written. So, I understand why people are pointing out that Anduin is just sad. But aim your frustration at Blizzard, not the character.

It’s a better way to get your point across.

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Wow, that is a dumb take. I am guessing you didn’t even think about that for a half second.

What is different between Anduin and all those others you listed? Motivation. Anduin wanted to make the world better. Those others wanted power.

A more comparable Horde character to Anduin would be Baine. He has been trying to make things better. He has failed and even been party to some pretty terrible things, like destroying Theramore and even Sylvanas war. He tried to stop them, but like Anduin, he wasn’t successful and ended up aiding evil against his will. And notably, narratively he is largely treated like all the other characters with good motivations. Forgiven for failures and treated as good people.

Even Thrall would fall under that category. He screwed up massively on more than one occasion. For example, Garrosh being in power and being allowed to stay in power so long was all on Thrall’s head. And Thrall’s story shows him feeling some guilt for that, as Anduin’s shows him feeling guilt over failures and mistakes. But the narrative clearly paints Thrall in a good light.

Comparing Anduin to actual villains isn’t a good comparison. Compare him to other heroes that tried to do good, but failed (Horde and Alliance) and you will see the narrative treats them pretty comparably.

This just feels like an ‘I know better than you’ kind of comment. I hope that is not what you meant. Maybe you should take a bit more time considering how your comments are written.

And to be clear:
It is fair to not like Anduin’s story. Not every story is going to appeal to everyone. Nobody should tell you that you have to like it. Whatever your reason, from personal taste to even your biases going in, you can dislike a story.

However, your complaint about how the narrative treats him is not well thought out, and not accurate. It reeks of just looking for a reason to justify your dislike. You grabbed something that looked good at quick glance, but was ultimately not accurate. Which just invalidated everything you were saying.

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Anduin was remote controlled.
He doesn’t kill a single person.
He strikes at Kyrestia to steal her infinity gem.
She is fine.

Had Garrosh done it, he’d have killed a billion innocent people. Blizzard bent over backwards to portray Garrosh as an evil villain who is only wrong.

THAT is the differentiator I was portraying, that you were too dim to have picked up on.

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This is you inserting your own ‘head cannon’ into this with no basis for that claim.

I don’t think you are understanding. Let me explain it a little clearer.

Anduin’s primary motivation as a character has always been to make the world better, to help people. While he has been naive and overly optimistic at times that has always been his core character goal. He and others (Baine, Thrall, etc.) were written as protagonists, heroes trying to make the world better.

Garrosh and those like him were written with a different character motivation. Garrosh was always motivated by desire for fame and power. Even his first meeting was him depressed about not having a honored name because of his father. His character has always been an antagonist. He was not ever written to be a hero. Some people wanted him to be. And some even thought he would be. But that was never his arc. He was always going to be a villain, so it is not a surprise when he ended up being one.

First off, no they didn’t. Garrosh had moments of ‘there is good here’ like many villains in various media have. He was not “only wrong.” Did you even watch Garrosh final ending cinematic. Even at the VERY end of his arc, at his death, Blizzard made sure to put is some points Garrosh was right about.

Garrosh said: “You made me warchief! You left me to pick up your pieces! YOU…FAILED…ME!”

Which was accurate. Garrosh was a villain. He made selfish choices. But he wasn’t portrayed as entirely wrong.

Second, yes Garrosh was always being set up as a villain. But that is how writing works. The author(s) decide who is going to be the hero and who is going to be the villain and they write towards that end.

That you can’t, or wont, understand that says more about your failings.

Ah, the insults. I do always get a kick out of it when someone tries to call other people stupid while making demonstrably false claims. Maybe you should take a little time, calm down, and rethink.

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Alex Afrasiabi went on record stating he was the only one who hadn’t gotten the memo.
He made the quest to which you refer. The one single moment in Garrosh’s entire history where he is only a good, heroic character.

My son.
You’re willfully ignoring all of the very many people Garrosh committed to the grave.

To the civilians he had torture murdered for the lols in Orgrimmar after ushering them to safety from the murderbomb THAT HE COMMISSIONED in Theramore.

Like. The cruelty can’t be overstated. And you’re just ignoring it because you want to pretend you know better.

But that’s all it is.

Pretense.

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I never referred to that quest. So, nice strawman attempt there.

Funny how the goal post has moved. Now you want a time he was only good. You had claimed he was “only wrong” before.

That was quick for getting two different logical fallacies in.

This is so far left field that it would be generous to call it a strawman.

Garrosh was a villain. Garrosh did terrible things. That doesn’t mean you can invent a scenario where he is in Anduin’s situation killing “a billion innocent people.” That is just you inventing some head cannon for a what if type story. You have no idea how the writers would have written it.

Again, Garrosh was always a villain. Which is why he can’t be compared to someone who was always written to be a hero.

Really not sure how you are not getting that. It is like complaining that Batman comics always portray Batman differently than the Joker. One is meant to be a hero and the other a villain.

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Lying.
Okay. You want to waste time?
I am down to waste your time.

Here you told me that I was incorrect because Garrosh is portrayed to have good here. His quests in WotLK never show this without heavy doses of racism, fascism, xenophobia, and desire to commit copious amounts of genocide.

So clearly, you aren’t referring to WotLK.

Cataclysm has ONE. SINGLE. QUEST. where he is unambiguously good.
One single quest.
The one where Alex Afrasiabi stated unequivocally was his fault because “”“He didn’t get the memo”“”.

This is the only moment where Garrosh is just a good guy. He doesn’t want to exterminate the human race. He doesn’t want to kill Thrall, or go choke a gnome. He just wants the Horde to be good, do good, and be honorable.

And it isn’t in character for him. As admitted by then-staff Alex Afrasiabi.
Blizzard did not want Garrosh to be a hero. He was a villain. And as they wrote him, he was a xenophobic fascist and racial supremecist.

So no.

Ya wrong.

It isn’t. You’re just dim.

No goalpost movement on my side.
Just yours.

See below.

Garrosh is routinely displayed as a figure that wants to kill as many enemies as possible, all the time, every time. And you ignored it because you wanted to pretend you knew better, and didn’t think anyone would take the time to line the arguments up for ease of consumption.

But I will.

Do you know what Garrosh and Anduin both are?

RACIAL LEADERS.

It’s almost like I chose Garrosh specifically in the first example.
I chose Grom because he actually is a hero for a portion of his story.
And I chose Gul’dan because he is just permanently a villain.
All three of them behave the same way: Crazy evil.

Anduin is nothing like them.

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Anduin killed Night Fae offscreen.

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Isn’t there a whole bunch of bodies laying around during the part where he steals the key to Heart of the Forest?

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There absolutely are.

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Meanwhile,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6HGmlDrXHE

He had no need for pretense once he actually got there.
He could just kill them all on the way in.
And doing so would empower Zoovy with even more souls.

Edit:
Rewatching the cutscene, it really seems like it was meant for Kyrestia to die there.
I wonder if that was the plan and then Golden stepped in.

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The one part I always liked about that particular cinematic is when Anduins voice changes briefly and you can actually hear Arthas speaking briefly before the Jailer takes over.

I thought it was a neat little nod to a legacy character

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Dude.

I’m hard of hearing and would never have noticed that had you not pointed it out to me.
Thanks, that’s neat.

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Yeah. The part where Anduin tells Kerestia No, he is bound to me is Arthas speaking. And than his voice changes to the Jailers after that

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I always wonder how people like you can look at something directly there and say it is something else despite everyone having eyes. The only specific thing I referenced was his ending cinematic. Do you really think you can gaslight change the past with the truth being directly above? You are clearly shameless and dishonest.

He is and always was a villain. His BC quests also hint at much of that. But there is this thing about the word “only.”

Let’s refresh you:

Notice the word only. I provided a clear example of him not being only wrong in the cinematic. It wasn’t the only time. He was wrong most of the time, like you would expect of a villain. But he was not ONLY wrong.

Does that make it clear? Or are you going to shamelessly try to lie about the posts just above again?

Again, a villain.

Again with the insults. Thanks for the laugh. Always funny when someone makes idiotic comments and tries to hide it by insulting other people.

I know you have zero idea what the writers would have done. Thing is, nobody knows what they would have done in that hypothetical situation. You invented a situation, and then claim you know what the writers would have done. Then you use that as some kind of justification for your invented theory.

So, to line it all up:
You invent a situation.
You invent a result.
You pretend that is hard fact supporting your claim.

Oh, look they have one thing in common. Not one that has any bearing on if they are written to be a villain or not.

The thing that does have a bearing is Anduin was written to be a hero, much like Baine and Thrall (notably both racial leaders as well). Do you really have that little understanding about narratives that you are fixated on the racial leader trait? Is that the only thing you can wrap your head around?

He was a villain for the majority of his story. He just had a redemption arc at the end. Garrosh followed Grom’s story except without the redemption arc. Neither are comparable to Anduin who was written from the start as a hero character. Again, Baine and Thrall are the ones that most closely compare to Anduin’s purpose in the story.

All three of them are either for the majority or all of their story are motivated by greed for power and influence. Exactly what you would expect of someone designed to be a villain.

They are like Joker, written to be villains. You don’t compare them to the narrative around someone intended to be a hero.

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You can go to great lengths to justify it. Do the job that others are paid to do.
However, this is not the lore. All of this doesn’t bother him. The only thing that does is his suspicion that he enjoyed causing pain.

That’s it. Everything else is headcanon.

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Yeah, I think he even mentions he wasn’t sure if was him or Zooval that was enjoying it the times he was dominated

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My god, this post derailed SO FAST I had whiplash.

I think they should’ve made Anduin go further into that whole mess. Had he killed, lets say, Baine while being under Domination, it would have been so much more impactful. I don’t care one bit for Baine, but Anduin seems to like him. Baine trusted him with one of his horns and such, it would have given so much more weight to his predicament.

It really feels like the Archon should have died with that impalement, yes. Granted, she’s a super soul stuck into a robot so morphology doesn’t apply, but her death would also be another weight to his conscience because not only he’d have killed an important leader in on itself, that could’ve thrown the Kyrian in disarray and cause more chaos than what was already going on.

I sympathise with him, I really do, but a lot of the ‘THE THINGS I’VE DONE WHILE THE JAILER CONTROLLED ME!’ part falls really flat because none of his actions caused actual permanent damage. Everything was solved and undone.

Hell, just the DK starting quest has you doing a lot more horrible things than he did.

I think they should’ve focused less on the domination part and more on the accumulating weight on him. Garrosh all but pulverised him, his mother vanish and so did his father, which turned into two people who then merged back somehow, died again, he had to ressurect him, then the woman they trusted turned out to be an evil dragon. Time passes with him always in the shadow of his father, and when he sacrifices himself to save the people at Darkshore, everything goes to hell and he has to lead the Alliance smack dab in the middle of a full scale invasion of the Burning Legion while one of his generals is being ultra aggressive towards the Horde. And AFTER the Legion is dealt with, war with the Horde resumes and he goes from one battle to another, having to kill people and watch them die on droves. When the numbers of actual soldiers dwindled, he had to send farmers to the front, and good luck with that on your conscience. And now the Banshee burned Theldrassil and your OTHER general turned into a full loose cannon that won’t obey your orders.

Man, he’s around 20 yo by this point. This man went through enough stress and trauma to drive someone insane. Of course he’d break at some point. Blizz would’ve made his current arc much better if the domination thing wasn’t the do-all-be-all of his fall, but the straw that broke the camel’s back.

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Garrosh is so wrong that Saurfang tells him he’ll kill him for it if he keeps it up.

Please link this cinematic you’re talking about where Garrosh isn’t wrong.
I’ll wait.

Returning fire.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Didn’t.

Ya wrong.

They also have supreme leader of the faction in common.

When the Horde supreme leader is written to be a villain, he becomes a monster.
When Anduin is written to be a monster, he never stops being a hero.

:dracthyr_lulmao::dracthyr_lulmao::dracthyr_lulmao:
What game are you playing?

Thrall doesn’t even escape this like Anduin. Thrall gets blamed for things he had no control over. Garrosh was Hitler? All Thrall’s fault.

That’s not my opinion, that’s what the game (and Blizzard at Blizzcon) tells you.

This is hilarious, given you missed the barn with your own point.
:dracthyr_hehe_animated:

You’re almost there.
You’re so close.
Oh my god I might have faith in you.

Now what, Meringue, do these three characters have in common, that they do not have in common with Anduin?

Come on!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qztuEucrNBc

This is precisely my point.
There are almost never consequences for Alliance characters.
Anduin, like Jaina, gets off scott free.

If either of them were Horde characters, they would’ve been killed in raid.
Jaina got stopped before drowning Orgrimmar.
Anduin just… didn’t kill anyone but I guess some nameless nightfae, despite striking Kyrestia with the most powerful Mourneblade to have ever existed. So much so that she is forced to the ground and cannot react.

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That’s actually a really good point. (At Khal).

Of course, trauma stacks up and it’s hard to judge exactly where (or how) someone will find it too much.

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